


From Eden

by Kittendiamore



Series: oh what a sin [1]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Criminal Damen, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Waiter Laurent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 11:00:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18141317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittendiamore/pseuds/Kittendiamore
Summary: The man was leaning across the counter. Laurent resisted the urge to mirror the movement. They hadn’t broken eye contact yet.“It’s just you and me in here,” the man said. “Anything could happen.”This man, Laurent knew without a doubt, was a bad decision. Laurent took a slow step back. He raised his chin, a challenge. “Not with you on that side of the counter.”





	From Eden

**Author's Note:**

> People on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nikanndros) encouraged me to write this, and thus I cannot be held responsible. Title is from the Hozier song of the same name.

The bell above the door chimed. Laurent resisted a sigh, and turned to smile vacantly at the new customer.

“What can I get you, sweetheart?” The words were automatic. He lived on autopilot.

The dull monotony of working in this fucking diner was killing him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt awake, clear from the fog that shrouded him.

“Well, sweetheart,” the customer said, voice deep. “What do you recommend?”

Laurent blinked. This town was the kind of small, backwoods place that made one used to seeing the same faces daily. They weren’t even a stopover on the way to somewhere more interesting. This man was new. No one was ever new here.

Laurent looked at him. “What do you like?” he asked. The man was broad shouldered and handsome. His short hair curled attractively atop his head, and he gave Laurent a smile that oozed a natural confidence. He was clearly well aware of how he looked.

“Are you on offer?”

Laurent had been working in this diner since he was fifteen and his uncle had decided it was time for him to pay his way now that he’d outgrown his other uses. People had been coming onto him for years. He was well practised in making the kind of scathing look that made a man shrivel up and back away.

To this man though. “We’ll have to see how generously you tip,” he said. Reckless. He could already feel the back-handed hit his uncle would rein upon him when he found out that Laurent had been acting like a whore. He didn’t care.

The man was leaning across the counter. Laurent resisted the urge to mirror the movement. They hadn’t broken eye contact yet.

“It’s just you and me in here,” the man said. “Anything could happen.”

This man, Laurent knew without a doubt, was a bad decision. Laurent took a slow step back. He raised his chin, a challenge. “Not with you on that side of the counter.”

It took one graceful movement for the man to hop over the counter. He was tall, over six foot. He advanced on Laurent, as Laurent led him past the threshold into the kitchen. They were the only two people in the building, this late on a Wednesday evening.

The back of Laurent’s thighs bumped against a kitchen bench. The man took the opportunity to step into Laurent’s space, a hand clutching the bench on either side of him. Laurent was trapped. The man kissed him.

He grabbed Laurent’s waist, one hand slipping up the back of his work-shirt in a practised move. Laurent didn’t resist. His heart was pounding. He got a tight grip in the man’s hair and pulled. The man bit his lower lip in retaliation. Laurent hissed.

The man grasped his ass and lifted him to sit on the table. Laurent went, only interested in pulling this man closer to him.

“Do you offer this kind of service to all your customers?” he asked.

“You’d have to buy something to be a customer,” Laurent replied.

“Lie down.” He looked so fucking cocky, so sure that Laurent would obey that part of Laurent wanted to hit him. It would be a shame to hurt a face like that, though.

Laurent reached behind himself and clumsily swept an arm across the counter. Pots and pans clattered to the floor, loudly. He fell back upon the now cleared bench. It was cold, even through his shirt. A shiver went down his spine.

The man unzipped Laurent’s jeans, unclothing him only enough to take his cock out.

Laurent let out a shaky breath. What was he doing? He’d only just met the man -- he didn’t even know his name -- and now he was letting him touch him like this. It was so rare for Laurent to want something, and even rarer for him to get what he wanted. He couldn’t say no. Looking into this man’s eyes had been the first time Laurent had felt awake in years. Even better than that, he felt alive.

Gently, the man took both of Laurent’s hand in his, stroking his fingertips over Laurent’s palms, and then he guided Laurent to grab the his hair again. The man waited, until Laurent was looking back at him, and then, irritatingly, arousingly, he winked.

He dropped his head and took Laurent into his mouth.

Laurent gasped. His fingers clutched at the man’s hair. He was suddenly very aware of himself, sprawling across a kitchen bench in his workplace, a beautiful stranger between his legs, panting into the cool night air. Wanton, desperate. Laurent could feel his climax building. No one had ever done this to him before.

“Oh, God,” Laurent groaned, blinking dazedly up at the ceiling.

He tried to tug on the man’s hair to warn him, but the man didn’t stop. He laved attention on Laurent until he was coming. It was obscene.

The man stood up straight again. Laurent had the dizzying thought that, he would be willing to let the man do anything to him. He took Laurent’s hands again and pulled Laurent up, back into a seated position. Laurent fell upon him, and then they were kissing again. Laurent could taste himself in the man’s mouth.

He slipped a hand into the man’s pants.

The bell above the door chimed. They both froze. For one hysterical moment, Laurent considered ignoring it. They could slip out the back door and the man could fuck him in the dark alley. But.

The man was a passing stranger. He would leave, and Laurent would still need his soulless job. Laurent pulled away.

The man didn’t try to stop him, but urgently, he whispered, “Tell me your name.” He made it sound like he needed to know. As if Laurent were someone important.

“Laurent,” he breathed. He pushed the man away to stand up and straighten out his clothing.

“Damen,” the man replied.

“Stay here,” Laurent said. He walked back out to the front.

The intruder was a man, a little taller than Laurent and bulkier. His hair was dark, his beard trimmed, and his suit was neat but unassuming.

“Were you sleeping back there?” Uncle asked, a disapproving eyebrow raised. “I despair of your work ethic.”

“What are you doing here?” Laurent’s voice was flat. The kitchen already felt like a distant memory. He wanted to leap across the counter and hurt his uncle for ruining that as well as everything else in Laurent’s life.

“I can’t check on my beloved nephew?” He always managed to make it sound like he was the one being attacked.

“What do you want?”

His uncle rapped his knuckles against the counter. “I’m having a small gathering on Saturday evening. I’ll need you out of the house for the night.”

Laurent scowled. “Where am I supposed to go?”

He was sure his uncle would have shrugged, did he not consider such a gesture below him. “You seemed to be having a fine time sleeping in the back just now.” With no more than that, his uncle turned and left.

Laurent stood there, alone, watching until the flash of his uncle’s headlights had drifted out of view. He took a few steadying breaths, before walking back into the kitchen.

The room was empty, the back door left slightly ajar.

-

“You look tired, Laurent,” Torveld said, smiling benignly “I hope you’re not working too hard.”

Laurent refilled his coffee. “I work the same hours every week.”

He was usually much nicer to Torveld; considering he was the man who owned the half of town that didn’t belong to Laurent’s uncle. Torveld had been flirting with Laurent for the past two years, since he showed up to the diner on Laurent’s eighteenth birthday with a cake and a watch for him (as if he’d had the date marked on a calendar, waiting for Laurent to be legal to fuck).

Laurent had considered him over the years, as a potential escape from his uncle. The only problem was that Torveld was forty and bearded and Laurent didn’t think he could bring himself to go to bed with that every night. Still, he’d been keeping the option open just in case his life got any more unbearable.

It had been a week since Damen had passed through town, and now Laurent was trapped back into the monotony of his life, but it was worse this time because he had had a taste of what if felt like to be someone.

“If someone like you was mine,” Torveld said, “You wouldn’t have to work at all.”

No, he’d just be a pretty decoration, waiting at home all day to be fucked. He didn’t have any desire to do that again.

Laurent gave Torveld a lukewarm smile, and moved to go back behind the counter. He walked past Sheriff Guion’s booth on the way and purposely knocked the man’s elbow. Guion spilt his glass of coke down the front of his shirt. The bell rang.

“Watch where you’re going, boy,” Guion said.

“Go to hell, old man,” Laurent replied, breezily.

He still remembered going to the sheriff, when he had been fourteen and hurting, and begging to be taken away from his uncle’s care. Instead, Guion had told him that he was ‘misunderstanding’ what was happening to him. Later, Laurent found out that Guion had blackmailed his uncle over it, and then for a few extra bills offered over his own youngest son. No one knew where Aimeric was now, but Laurent suspected it was nowhere good.

Laurent turned, only to bump right into a broad chest.

“Steady there, sweetheart,” Damen said.

Laurent looked up at him. “You’re back.”

There was something different about him. Dressed head-to-toe in black, his eyes were the brightest thing about him. He looked elated, energised, as if he were just moments from bouncing where he stood. Laurent couldn’t imagine radiating that kind of happiness.

“I’m back,” he agreed.

Laurent stood there, stupidly.

“Coffee?” Damen prompted.

“Oh,” Laurent said. “Yes.” He walked around the counter to fill up a fresh cup. Damen sat back in the exact seat that he had taken one week ago.

“It’s busier tonight,” Damen said, gesturing to the two other people in the place.

“About as busy as it gets,” Laurent agreed.

Damen accepted his mug, and then swivelled in his seat to put his back to Laurent.

“Excuse me, sir,” Damen called out, across the diner. “Are you the sheriff?”

Guion looked shocked to be addressed. “I am,” he agreed.

“I can’t imagine you get much excitement in a place like this,” Damen said. He commanded the room simply by being in it.

“I keep busy enough.” Guion frowned.

“Do you have a gun?”

“Of course.”

“Are you a good shot?”

Guion looked uneasy. “Do you have a point?”

Damen grinned. “I’m just making conversation.” He turned again so that Torveld was in his line of sight. “What about you, buddy?”

“I don’t have a gun,” Torveld replied, wryly.

Damen laughed. “What do you do?”

“I own land. Are you thinking of settling down here?” Torveld sounded genuinely interested.

“No,” Damen said. “I was just curious. I’m not often in a place this small.”

Torveld smiled. “It has its charms.” His gaze strayed to Laurent.

“So I’ve noticed,” Damen agreed. Effectively ending that conversation, he turned back to Laurent. “What about you, Laurent? What are you doing here?”

Laurent raised the coffee pot. “Working.”

“Do you study?”

“No.”

“Graduated?”

“This isn’t the kind of place where one goes to higher education,” Laurent told him.

“What’s your plan then? Find a nice girl to settle down with?” He was teasing.

“Not quite.”

Damen smiled. He leaned in, conspiratorial. “What then?”

No-one ever asked Laurent that because the whole town knew that Laurent was going nowhere. He’d live and die in this god forsaken place and no-one would care enough to shed a tear over it. He didn’t know how to answer.

“I’m going to call it a night, Laurent,” Torveld said, approaching. He put a bill on the counter, way too much for what he’d ordered, but Laurent knew he wouldn’t take the change. “Are you working tomorrow?”

“Do you not remember my schedule by now?” Laurent asked.

Torveld laughed. “Tomorrow, then.”

He left. Damen was eyeing Laurent consideringly.

“It looks like I’m not your only caller,” he said.

“Are you here to call on me?”

Damen grinned. “What are you doing with your life, Laurent?”

“Nothing,” Laurent said, honestly. “Wasting it, probably.”

Damen dropped his voice. “Would you like to run away with me? I can’t offer you much, but I promise you’ll have fun.”

Laurent blinked. Was he serious? They barely knew each other.

Damen continued, sounding confident and casual, as if it were easy for him to offer something like this. As if Laurent had already said yes. “We’d have to leave soon,” he said. “I’m on something of a time constraint.”

“How soon?”

He looked at his watch. “No more than ten minutes.”

“I don’t have anything with me.”

“You won’t need it,” Damen told him. He took off his black leather jacket and held it out to Laurent.

Laurent glanced at Guion. He seemed to be ignoring them. “We’ll have to be quick out of town,” Laurent said. “The sheriff will be on the phone to my uncle the second he sees me leave.”

Slowly, Damen’s grin widened. He looked almost predatory. “The sheriff will have bigger things to worry about.”

Damen stood up. There was a gun in the waistband of his pants. Their eyes met. Laurent could feel his heart rate pick up.

“About the officer,” Damen said. “Would you mind terribly if he were injured?”

“Why would he get injured?”

“He’s about to pull a gun on me. I’m going to defend myself.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Darling,” Damen drawled. He oozed with charm. “Open the cash register. Empty it.”

Guion’s radio started chirping.

“Hurry now,” Damen said. “Sounds like the men at the bank have woken up. That was my first stop.”

Laurent had known, from the moment that he had walked in, that this man was a bad decision waiting to happen. He just hadn’t realised how bad. He could feel the corners of his lips tilting upwards. He put on the jacket. He moved to the register.

A scratchy voice over the radio was giving Guion a description: “Approximately six foot three, heavily muscled, very sociable.” Guion fumbled for his gun.

Damen was faster. Guion fell, clutching his leg with a gasp of pain.

Shocked, and with hands full of cash, Laurent was startled into a laugh.

Damen gave him a pleased look. “Like I said--” he offered Laurent his hand, “--I promise we’ll have fun.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am on tumblr as [Nikanndros](https://nikanndros.tumblr.com/). I might write more in this universe at some point.


End file.
